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Adair writes "A father and son team from Brooklyn successfully launched a homemade spacecraft nearly 19 miles (around 100,000 feet) above the Earth's surface. The craft was a 19-inch helium-filled weather balloon attached to a Styrofoam capsule that housed an HD video camera and an iPhone. The camera recorded video of its ascent into the stratosphere, its apogee where the balloon reached its breaking point, and its descent back to earth. They rigged a parachute to the capsule to aid in its return to Earth, and the iPhone broadcast its GPS coordinates so they could track it down. The craft landed a mere 30 miles from its launch point in Newburgh, NY, due to a quick ascent and two differing wind patterns. The pair spent eight months researching and test-flying the craft before launching it in August. Columbia University Professor of Astronomy Marcel Aguera said, 'They were very good but also very lucky.'"

I use a $30 Boost phone, hence I know its abilities. It may not have the bells, whistles and "hip" value but it does what I need for what I can afford.

My bad. The $1k was pulled out of the air, I think I had iPhone and iPad mixed up somewhere in the brain. A quick Google has informed me that even when the iPhone first hit the market it was a high of about $600.

When the atmosphere gets thin enough it's "space"; 19 miles is stretching the definition a bit, but people of good faith can disagree on where that is. The WPIX article saying they sent into "into orbit" is of course dead wrong. It wasn't even a suborbital ballistic flight (like Alan Shepard's first).

It's entirely possible to go to space without reaching escape velocity. You will get there as long as you're moving up and your thrust is greater or equal to the force of gravity. Escape velocity only concerns something moving up without any thrust at all. Of course, we can't build anything that will maintain thrust equal to the force of gravity for long enough, but if we could, we could go to space... at a snail's pace!

It's not even a matter of trying to draw a fuzzy boundary. This was a balloon, with no propulsion. By its very nature there's no way it can go above the atmosphere regardless of how you define the boundary of space.

But its 19 mile ascent showed the plucky determination of the American family unit, and as such it may as well have reached the moon! That's what really counts here, and it's important that people are told about this feat so they feel better about things.

Meanwhile, the Chinese are sending an actual spacecraft to the moon. But, whatever... .

This is essentially a bureaurcratic definition. 100 km serves as a convenient line for dividing air travelers from astronauts, but there is no physical change in the atmosphere at that point. It is just an arbitrary line in the sky.

This is essentially a bureaurcratic definition. 100 km serves as a convenient line for dividing air travelers from astronauts, but there is no physical change in the atmosphere at that point. It is just an arbitrary line in the sky.

It's not arbitrary, it's a practical definition. At 100km in an aircraft, you need to fly at orbital velocities just to stay aloft, so effectively you need a spacecraft instead.

a sealed capsule is not really a spacecraft anymore than a submarine is a spacecraft.
Any balloon, no mater how high it goes, REQUIRES the atmosphere to reach "space".
another example: a boat is not an airplane, even though it can be thousands of meters above the ground

At 100km in an aircraft, you need to fly at orbital velocities just to stay aloft, so effectively you need a spacecraft instead.

What??? Sorry, you need to go back and rethink that statement; it's not even close to true. Can you explain how SpaceShipOne, flying at 'only' Mach 3, was able to go higher than 100km? Thus, not only staying aloft at at 100km, but climbing? Or the X-15, which also flew higher than 100km, and also at significantly less than orbital velocity?

I like how a good authoritative sounding statement, (which happens to be false), got modded +4 informative.

What the grandparent probably meant by 'stay afloat' is maintaining altitude for a considerate amount of time. SSO and X-15 reached the 100km point, but had to come down relatively quickly because, once fuel runs out, you just fall to the gravity well.

If you're in the atmosphere, you can glide without using all that much fuel. You can't do that in space - certainly not at 100km altitude. In order to 'stay afloat', you need to do orbital velocity.

Of course, since it's not like atmosphere abruptly ends somewhere, the 'where to draw the line' can be a bit arbitrary, but the currently chosen one isn't impractical.

That's not the bureaucratic definition. That's a practical definition. (The bureaucratic definition is either 50 miles or 76 miles, depending on whether you're coming or going. (No, I'm not kidding; NASA calls it spaceflight once you get above 50 miles, but reëntry (end of spaceflight) occurs when descending to 76 miles.) You seriously misunderestimate the stupidity and omnipresence of the bureaucratic mentality if you think they could adopt anything so practical a definition as the approximate bou

19 miles (30 km, 100000 ft) is not in the upper atmosphere. It's in the stratosphere, which is considered part of the lower atmosphere along with the troposphere.For comparison, the SR-71 cruised at 85000 ft, and the International Space Station is at ~350 km, and that's still considered well inside the atmosphere.

While it's impossible to say where space begins, I think a minimum criterion is to reach low earth orbit, or at least 160 km. This wasn't even a fifth of the way.

Yes, it's impressive to get a home made balloon up to more than three times the height of Chomolungma, but you do these guys a disservice by comparing it to space.

The Karman line is the defined boundary for space. Your claim that "there is no clear 'line'..." can applied to most anything, including boundaries between land and sea.

There is no clear line, or particular grain of sand, that divides land from sea. There is a wetness gradient, where you go from completely dry, to moist sand, to ever more moist sand, to fairly wet sand, to very wet sand, to sand with frothy puddles, to turbid water, ankle high water, knee high water... you get the drift.

Everything in nature lacks a clear boundary - due to planck's constant and such. All you can say is, with error bars, what the boundary is. We know the coastal boundaries of nations, within +/- 25m error. Similarly, the Kamran line is a decent boundary for when space stars from the Earth's surface. Is it exact to the millimeter? No, doesn't have to be. But the property is that buoyant crafts (bouyant due to density or due to propulsion with wings) cannot exist at the Kamran line. Just as the coastal boundaries of nations, while not defining the exact grain of sand land stops and sea begins, generally define the point at which you're dry or wet, within +/- 25m.

Seriously, it only goes up 30km. And there is no improvement that can possibly be made to a helium balloon that can make it actually go any higher than Earth's atmosphere. It's a good accomplishment but calling it a spacecraft is a bit disingenuous.

And there is no improvement that can possibly be made to a helium balloon that can make it actually go any higher than Earth's atmosphere.

Yes there is. Attach rockets.

What is so sad is that joke of a "spacecraft" this gets a strong mention in the press (and on Slashdot) while a real spacecraft... using a helium balloons as a 1st stage to get altitude is being used in a genuinely innovative fashion for something new with rocketry. See:

ARCA was successful with their last launch attempt.... which was launched yesterday. No video links yet, but the official page says that the launch attempt was successful. Yeah, attaching rockets to a balloon is something being considered.

FYI, ARCA (Aeronautics and Cosmonautics Romanian Association) is using this flight as a part of the testing regime in order to get TO THE MOON! They are a Google Lunar X-Prize team who is making some real progress and sending stuff up. They are also doing it on a budget of a mostly volunteer team in Eastern Europe. The main reason for using the balloons is not really the altitude issue, but that does simplify the rocket nozzle designs as it can be tuned to a near vacuum rather than having to deal with atmospheric flight (it makes a difference). Also, if something goes "boom", that explosion happens high up in the sky and over the Black Sea instead of over a populated area, making the issues of a launch pad much less of a problem.

These guys are doing some thing almost as cool though sticking to purely amateur ideals. Luckily for science loving people they've gotten a lot of press coverage. Unfortunately their latest launch failed on the pad, due to an issue with power, and they wont be able to attempt another test for six months odd. Still it is great to see people attempting to move past the generic rocket club stuff people have been doing pre-fab for 40 years.

They definitely, along with some other examples, inspired me to push my friends to start doing serious engineering projects for fun. So far our list of things to attempt comes from any thing cool on TV that come with the stupid warning 'don't try this at home!'.

I have to disagree with your statement that ARCA is doing something 'genuinely innovative' by using a balloon for the first stage. The concept is called a 'Rockoon' and was pioneered in the US in 1949 and has been used extensivly by JP Areospace, (among others), a small US company that has been working with balloons and rockets for over 30 years.

A rocket engine, by definition, uses on-board oxidizer. In the case of a solid rocket engine, like those used in most model rockets, the oxidizer is mixed with the fuel to form a solid, which forms the grain inside the engine itself.

As others have already pointed out you have to be at least 60 miles up to be in outer space so this wasn't a true space craft. It probably did get high enough to see the curvature of the earth and a black (or at least violet) sky. Aircraft with air breathing engines have gotten up this high so there is still atmosphere up this high. Maybe someday someone will try attaching a large model rocket similarly equipped to a balloon that will ignite at 100K ft. Something like that might get into space. (This h

I remember many similar stories already making the headlines here. I don't want to downplay their achievement, it's cool, but it's not really new or exciting anymore for anyone but them. I was hoping a real heavier-than-air craft, not another weather balloon.

Sigh! You can never reach space in a balloon. Something that floats in the atmosphere cannot rise above the atmosphere. It's as ridiculous as thinking you can rise above the surface of the water in a submarine. This thing doesn't even get a third of the way to space.

Actually, you certainly can rise above the surface of the water with a submarine. You just need a good deal of momentum, and you're not going to stay up there very long... Try holding a beach-ball below water, as deep as possible, then letting go.

Because the craft made it so high and the fact that they put an Iphone inside it now becomes a threat to our spy staelites (read"we may not be able to spy on our own citizens")and the NSA has deemed it a security threat and removed the story from most major news outlets. Sheesh this country's gone to hell.

If slashdot ever allows real article moderation (and not that firehose abortion), in addition to 'flamebait' and 'troll', can we have a '-1, pedant bait' article? Seriously, at the time of this comment, of 35 articles, at least half are arguing over whether or not this is truly a spacecraft. It's really easy to shit on others from the safety of your parents' basement. Whether it has been done before is also irrelevant. This father and son is doing something. There's too many complainers to call someone else out specifically, but what have you people done lately? I don't claim to have done anything interesting of late, but I also am not shitting on what others have done.

Slashdot staff consists of the "editors". Real article moderation would make it more difficult for the "editors" to remain in denial that they are failures as editors. Therefore Slashdot staff are unlikely to implement real article moderation.

in addition to 'flamebait' and 'troll', can we have a '-1, pedant bait' article?

There are plenty of comments that are filled with contempt "this joke of a 'spacecraft'". I think a lot of it is jealousy.

This. Jealous of jocks for getting the hot chicks, jealous of musicians for being able to tap out a beat, jealous of MBAs for making lots of money, jealous for real nerds for getting out and doing something.

I think it is one thing to accomplish an interesting, even astonishing deed, it's a very thing to misrepresent the accomplishment as something greater than what it is. We have definitions of where space begins, and they didn't reach that. Balloons are also useless vehicles in space, so that should be another indication.

1. It is a balloon. Not even the people who fly these for a living call them spacecraft. Says WikiP: "A spacecraft is a craft or machine designed for spaceflight." This thing popped when it rose above too much atmosphere. It was not designed for space. It was still in the stratosphere when it failed according to design.

2. The Karman line is the generally accepted edge of space at 100 km (62.5 mi). This is where an aircraft would have to fly so fast to get lift from the thin air that it would achieve orbital velocity in the attempt and so wings would be superfluous. The US has awarded astronaut wings to pilots flying above 50 miles. This doesn't change the objective criteria of the Karman line.

3. The CSXT GoFast achieved space altitude (72 miles) on May 17 2004 and is the only unmanned civilian craft to do so to date. It was designed for a flight profile carrying it into space and so was a spacecraft. As was SpaceShip One, the only civilian manned spacecraft to date.

4. Reaction Research Society hit 50 miles in 1996. Hunstville L5 passed this 19 mile mark, but was ballooned launched and so not entirely spacecraft.

5. No amateur spacecraft made from off the shelf or home made components has achieved even a 50K ft altitude according to Tripoli records. With Tripoli and the National Association of Rocketry's recent facing down ATFE over the definition of 'explosives', the FAA et al. is redefining amateur rocketry to include power up to 200,000 lb-ft sec and a concominant (and easily achieved with this power) 93 mile altitude. Most motors in this range are "experimental" ie. home made, but there are a few commercially available motors that can be staged and/or clustered for this power, the 152mm dia + 96" Loki Research P motor at 80kN-sec each being the largest you can currently put on your credit card. 11 of these will put you just under the FAA's proposed limit. 12, and you have to apply to NASA's office of space transportation for a permit. Expect an amateur spacecraft to make the flight, because now it's a matter of qualifying for the license and buying the parts.

2. The Karman line is the generally accepted edge of space at 100 km (62.5 mi). This is where an aircraft would have to fly so fast to get lift from the thin air that it would achieve orbital velocity in the attempt and so wings would be superfluous. The US has awarded astronaut wings to pilots flying above 50 miles. This doesn't change the objective criteria of the Karman line.

Oh, fucking bullshit. Someone in Europe arbitrarily chose 100 KM as a nice round number, then came up with a bullshit derivation

2. The Karman line is the generally accepted edge of space at 100 km (62.5 mi). This is where an aircraft would have to fly so fast to get lift from the thin air that it would achieve orbital velocity in the attempt and so wings would be superfluous. The US has awarded astronaut wings to pilots flying above 50 miles. This doesn't change the objective criteria of the Karman line.

Oh, fucking bullshit. Someone in Europe arbitrarily chose 100 KM as a nice round number, then came up with a bullshit derivation after the fact to justify it. It's no more objective than 50 miles

Brett

Wrong
Wikipedia on the Karman Line [wikipedia.org]
Theodore von Kármán, (1881–1963) a Hungarian-American engineer and physicist, calculated what approx altitude would force you to achieve Orbital Velocity (27,000 kph) to stay there, and came up with about 100km. It's not exactly 100km, and it varies slightly, but it is indeed a nice round number, so they decided to keep it.

1) Gyroscopically stabilize the camera platform so the footage doesn't look like it was shot by Michael Bay on the Vomit Comet.

2) Use the balloon to bring an ordinary Estes model rocket to 100,000+ feet and fire it. If the rocket could reach 2,000 feet if launched from the ground, how high would it go if launched at 1% atmospheric pressure? In other words, what limits a model rocket's altitude performance -- drag or gravity? How long would the launch rod need to be to stabilize the rocket during launch a

Use the balloon to bring an ordinary Estes model rocket to 100,000+ feet and fire it.

Would an ordinary model rocket engine function at such high altitude? I don't know much about model rockets... but I had a couple when I was a kid. I think model rocket engines require oxygen in order for the black powder to burn?

Isn't it illegal under FCC regs to operate a cell phone at high altitudes? Doesn't the RF signal get detected by large numbers of cell stations, thus confusing the cell phone system? This is supposedly the rationale for making you turn off your cell phone on commercial jetliners.

The Brooklyn man was quoted as saying "it all started as a way to find out if there was really any place at all where I could get good reception on the iphone". When the phone landed there were 7 voicemail messages, 13 text messages, and 16 emails that were all sent several days prior but had managed to download at about 5 vertical miles.

Its hard to tell how high the craft actually is because of the use of the wide angle.When its tumbling around up high and the camera goes upside down you can see the curvature of the earth inverted. Pretty weird looking.In fact, on its way down where you can still make out trees and stuff, there seems to be a curvature.

I'm not saying they shouldn't have used wide-angle, indeed they should have for something like this. Its just a little misleading.

Actually, I think the parachute HINDERED and delayed it's return to earth, if anything. It would have been perfectly capable of returning to earth without help, as NASA scientists discovered some time ago...

The other reasons it won't be in the press: It didn't make it to space and it seems like everyone else is doing it too. Yeah, its a nice accomplishment, yeah, they should be proud of it but its not unique in the least, it seems like the past year everyone has been doing essentially what they have done.

I agree, I don't know why slashdot (and other "news" outlets) keep running stories of this kind. 100,000 feet ain't space. It ain't even CLOSE to space (Usually defined as above 100,000 meters-- over three times as high), and it sure as hell ain't orbit, which is the kind of space people usually *think* of as being spaceflight.

And it isn't even unusual-- basically, this is nice, but the bottom line is that these guys flew a weather balloon, which reached the kind of altitudes that such balloons usually re

"A Brooklyn father and his 7-year-old son made a homemade spacecraft that traveled into orbit -- and they have video to prove it." Orbit, really? Cool! Somebody contact NASA/ESA/FKA and tell them that you can now orbit the Earth while only travel 30 miles!

Have you ever jumped? One could consider that a low altitude orbit. You can orbit the earth and only travel a few mm.

"Has anyone done the calculations for the lowest altitude you could actually make an object - let's say an aerodynamically-shaped chunk of uranium or something else ultra-dense - orbit the earth at least once if you just got it moving fast enough in the right direction."

If you are not meaning about the real engineering problem but a theoretical one, no need to do the calculations: sea level.

Well, that's theoretical, since you still would need to find a clear path in order not to hit a land mass, a vessel, e